Something I try to impress upon everyone here at ParadoxLabs is that we are more than ourselves. Our work and our interactions can have far-reaching impacts, and we’re not just the people behind some websites. We are all partners in the success of our customers, and our staff, and our community.
In a manner of speaking, We Are Magento.
Sound familiar? That was actually the theme of last year’s Magento conference.
From the beginning, Magento’s draw has been more than the platform itself. It’s a powerful ecommerce platform, sure—but it also has more than 6,000 certified developers, 10,000 ready-to-go extensions, and 250,000 merchants running it across the world, all going through the same experience. That means you have a large support network when you get stuck, and a large pool of resources when you need to expand. Everything Magento and its substantial community are today is the result of nearly a decade of contributions by motivated individuals. I’m reminded of Newton’s words: “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
But at the same time: We’re a part of that community. We are those giants. (Well, maybe a lot of little people standing on a lot of shoulders.)
And as such, we need to act like it. We need to take pride in our work, and do good by our customers, and share our experiences.
Because we are Magento.
This is not a zero-sum game: A healthy community is good for all of us. Contributing to the community can take a lot of forms, like answering questions on Stack Exchange, or assisting security patching efforts, or supporting local non-profits. But another way we support the community is through Magento extensions. Many of our customers have dealt with pain in payment and subscription handling, and we help them work through that.
ParadoxLabs was recently invited to join the Magento Extension Developers Network (ExtDN). ExtDN is an organization of leading extension developers and thinkers in the Magento community, all committed to high standards of quality and conduct. Through cooperation, ExtDN aims to promote good practices and improve the extension marketplace and community.
Because that’s good for all of us.
The group’s vision and purpose closely align with our own principles and core values, and so we are now members.
As of writing, ExtDN consists of:
- aheadWorks
- Altima Interactive
- Blue Jalappeno
- dotmailer
- cobby
- ebizmarts
- Fooman
- Genmato
- integer_net
- Magemail
- Mageinferno
- Modulwerft
- ParadoxLabs
- proxiblue
- Rocket Web
- Sweet Tooth
- TheExtensionLab
- Unirgy
- WebShopApps
- Yireo
I had the opportunity to meet many of the other ExtDN members at Imagine several weeks ago, and it’s a group I’m proud to be associated with. I look forward to what we will be able to accomplish in the coming years.
I was also invited to discuss the state and direction of the extension community with a small group from Magento and the community, as part of the Magento Marketplace Council. Magento’s Marketplace team has big plans for the Extension Quality Program and other Marketplace enhancements.
One piece of info Magento repeatedly harped on during the conference was that 75% of all Marketplace submissions get rejected during quality checks. 50% fail on the automated code tests (such as breaking code standards, or failing to compile), and 50% of the rest fail during manual testing (not actually doing what the description or documentation said it should)! That’s a disheartening statistic, but there is a silver lining: Every extension going through that process is being improved in the process, and you can be confident that anything you find on the Magento Marketplace does what it says on the label.
The average Magento store has about a dozen third-party extensions, and I’ve seen as many as 60. That can be daunting, if not downright problematic. You’ve probably experienced that third-party extensions can be a mixed bag, and it’s hard to know what you’ll get without a trusted reference. ExtDN and the Magento Marketplace aim to improve that, and I’m glad to be a part of it.
